Travels with my campervan - maybe to Provence

Missus and I will be going to Provence for one or two weeks mid/end of June - could be by train, definitely not by plane and maybe, just maybe it could be by campervan. Trouble is, neither of us have any recent experience of driving abroad and thus we are feeling a bit wobbly about doing the van thing, especially as it would be a 1400 mile round trip +/- a couple of hundred miles in other directions.

We are currently comparing costs of train against campervan - i.e. train costs, hire car, hotels on top of already booked Gite. Campervan means, well you can all guess what that means, so ANY ADVICE/TIPS WOULD BE WELCOME!

Driving a Kombi in France is absolutely fine and dandy, though a shame you won't be using it to live in too as the whole country seems to be made of camp sites and they're quite often good.

Autoroutes are fast (apart from around Paris and Lyon) but fairly expensive. Country roads are much more interesting, but you'd spend all your time travelling.

We always break the trip somewhere in the middle as it's a flipping long trip at 65mph. Try somewhere in Burgundy maybe?

You'll want to check out the laws on spare bulbs, dayglo jackets, headlight deflectors etc, just to be safe. Cross-channel, Norfolk Line to Dunquerque is nice 'n' cheap but it's a fair way north and east, so the tunnel saves you loads of time.

During our tour last year, we went through France, Italy, Austria then a quick exit back home as our daughter was ill.

Easy to drive the bus through any of the European countries. I think the only thing we had forgotten, was that France is bloody huge and google maps and a sat nav don't take into account you are driving a campervan and not your normal car!